Earlier studies claimed that the contrastive tonal registers in the Shanghai dialect of Chinese were distinguished by contrastive phonation types, with the lower register showing breathier phonation. However, more recent studies found that younger speakers of Shanghai Chinese did not use phonation cues to contrast the tonal registers. The different results between the studies may indicate an ongoing sound change: phonation contrasts are merging among younger speakers. To better understand the phonetic realization of the tonal registers in Shanghai Chinese and to investigate whether a sound change is underway, speakers from both the older generation and the younger generation were recruited to produce pairs of words in different registers. Simultaneous audio and EGG signals were collected, and extensive acoustic and articulatory measurements were extracted. Significant age difference was found. Older speakers reliably produce contrastive phonation types for different registers, as demonstrated by significant differences in the overall spectral slope and the periodicity in acoustic signals, and the contact quotient in EGG signals. The lower register is breathier. In contrast, younger speakers do not produce breathier phonation for the lower register. This study provides evidence for the suggestion that Shanghai Chinese is gradually losing the breathy voice associated with the lower register.

This study investigates the acoustic and articulatory properties of phonation contrast in Shanghainese, the most thoroughly studied Chinese Wu dialect. Although studies generally suggest that the non-modal phonation associated with the lower register in Shanghainese is relatively breathier, it is unclear whether it is 'breathy voice,' 'slack voice' or 'whispery voice.'This study aims to provide a better understanding of the phonetic realization of the non-modal phonation in Shanghainese. Simultaneous audio and electroglottographic recordings were made from 52 speakers born before 1980. Both acoustic and articulatory data confirmed that the nonmodal phonation in Shanghainese is produced with relatively less glottal constriction and more aperiodic noise than the modal phonation. The novel finding of this study is that aperiodic noise plays a much more important role than spectral measures (i.e., indicators of glottal constriction) in the phonetic realization of the non-modal phonation. This property is distinct from the breathier voices in Gujarati, White Hmong and Southern Yi. These results suggest that the non-

Voice quality varies at different levels of communication functions. In order to better understand the range of voice quality variation in normal speech, it is important to examine the interaction between global functions and local functions. This study investigates the effect of vocal effort on the contrastive voice quality in Shaoxing Wu. Results show that register contrasts are maintained in all vocal effort conditions, suggesting that the controls for global vs local functions are rather independent. However, the contrastivity of the registers is modulated by the vocal effort conditions, and the register contrasts are less well-defined in the loud and soft conditions.

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Earlier literature documented that the tonal registers of Shanghainese were distinguished by both pitch and breathy voice, although recent studies suggested that young speakers might have lost the non-modal phonation. The goal of our present study is two-fold: (1) with the development of analytic tools, we extensively investigated the acoustic and articulatory properties of the breathy voice in Shanghainese; (2) with the ongoing sound change in mind, we recruited a large pool of speakers, born from 1930s to 2000s, so that we are able to discuss the different strategies in producing the register contrast among speakers. Simultaneous audio and EGG signals were collected. Statistical models suggested that speakers born after 1980 use different strategies in producing the register contrast. For older speakers, overall, the lower register has a breathy phonation type: periodicity and noise measures (HNR and CPP) are the most important acoustic correlates, followed by spectral tilts (H1-A1, H1-A2, and H1-A3); articulatorily, Contact Quotient and Speed Quotient reliably distinguish the two registers. For younger speakers, spectral measures are generally no longer a reliable cue, but noise measures still differ significantly between the two registers, since some younger speakers produce the lower register tones with creaky voice.